cat

My cat meows when I pee and here’s why…

August 2014 we brought home a kitty. We named him Iroh after a character from Avatar the Last Airbender (the Nickelodeon cartoon). Turns out the name was quite appropo. He’s a chunky baby – 13 lbs. He loves to eat, has a sensitive pallet, sleeps all day (what cat doesn’t?) and is an excellent mouser/warrior. 

     

But shortly after he came to live with us, we began to notice something different about our new little buddy. He wouldn’t drink out of his water dish. I’d fill it up with fresh water every day but he wouldn’t touch it. Instead, he would wait until someone left a glass of water unattended and then drink right out of the glass, sometimes sticking his face way, way down into it. 

A few months after he came to live with us we moved to a bigger house, a little way out of the city. We were excited about being able to let him outside more. There’s a cat door at our new place which makes it easy for him to come and go. He likes to hunt at night and sleep during the day. And one of his favorite places to sleep is on my bed. 

Now, I like to take a glass of water to bed with me at night and I keep it on my nightstand. Iroh also liked my glass of water. He could come home from hunting in the morning, crash on my bed and drink out of my glass whenever he was thirsty. It was the perfect situation for him. But I didn’t really like it too much. I used to use the same glass for a couple nights, I’d just refill it in my bathroom sink. But now I could never tell if Iroh had taken a drink from the glass or not. 

I finally came up with a solution. I bought a little glass dish, filled it with water and put it in my bathroom. Eventually, Iroh figured out what was going on and started drinking from the glass dish in the bathroom. The bathroom is right next to my bed so he could still sleep comfortably and have access to water.

Something else that’s a little weird about me – I’m kinda picky about which bathroom I use when I’m at home. Our new house has 4 toilets and I really only like to use my own. Sometimes I use one of the other ones but only when necessary. Most of the time, I’ll walk all the way up the stairs to my bedroom so I can use my own bathroom. My office is out in the extra room in the garage and even when I’m working, if I have to go, I walk past the bathroom in the garage through the house up a flight and a half of stairs to my bedroom. It’s ridiculous, I know, but it’s my house and I can do what I want. 

All of this together has created kind of a weird situation. This is how a normal day goes now: Iroh comes home from hunting and first eats from his food dish. Then, he goes upstairs and jumps up on my bed. He gives himself a kitty bath then goes to sleep. Whenever he gets thirsty, he hops off the bed and goes into my bathroom to drink from his little glass dish. If I’m around, I make sure the water is fresh for him. I go about my day until… I have to use the ole potty. Then, I go upstairs and shut the bathroom door and you know… But lately when I use the bathroom, Iroh comes to the door and meows until I’m done. When I open the door, he rushes in to get a drink. 

At first, I was pretty confused by the meowing but then it dawned on me: whenever I’m in the bathroom, Iroh hears the sound of me “making water” and thinks I’m filling up his water dish. He gets excited to have “fresh water” so he comes and meows outside the bathroom. 

All of this makes me think one thing: I have a weird kitty. 

Don’t judge a book by its cover AKA Don’t judge a woman by the contents of her shopping cart AKA I swear I’m not a crazy cat lady

This is the story of how I walked out of the store with the ultimate crazy cat lady cart.

I went to the store to buy cat food.  We ran out yesterday but he still had enough for one more day and then it snowed like crazy so I decided to wait until this evening to buy some.  Right before I left I got into a ridiculously stupid fight with Nick (my husband), really inconsequential and not worth mentioning except that it lays the ground work for the rest of my tale.

So we fight.  I go to the store feeling stupid and hurt.  As I park the car I remember that I’m also running low on provisions for the nether regions.  So I grab a cart and head for the most embarrassing aisle at Walmart.  I now have in my cart, 1 package of lady things.

I head to the cat food aisle, painstakingly pick out the cheapest all natural cat food I can find and start to walk out of the aisle when I decide to grab him a new toy (since he’s mutilated his others), a brush and what-the-heck-why-not grab a cube he can sit in because heaven knows I haven’t bought enough of those *sarcasm*. I now have in my cart, 1 package of lady biz, 1 bag of hipster cat food, 1 cat toy Nick will hate because it has feathers, 1 cat brush I probably don’t need and 1 cat cube that later turns out to be pink, oops.

I’m right next to the grocery department and decide to wander in.  I remember we are low on water (reverse osmosis is the way for me).  I head over to the place I think the water is, (I think the water is there because it’s supposed to be) I pass Twinkies on the way and manage to not put any in the cart.  The water is not where it is supposed to be. Now I’m even sadder. I go on a quest to find the water.

On my water quest I pass the snack foods aisle, I now have Twinkies and Ho Ho’s in my cart along with half the cat stuff aisle and a bag of hormone sponges.

They recently moved all the beer to a spot closer to the front to save little old ladies from being mowed down by college students during St. Pat’s.  I head for the beer thinking maybe they moved the water there too.  I pass the candy aisle.  I remember that I love peanut butter cups (who am I kidding, I never forgot).  I now have peanut butter cups, Devil cakes, Satan rolls, cat heaven and 1 package of pms catchers in my cart.

The water is not there which actually makes sense.  I realize the water must be back where the beer used to be.  I turn around and quickly walk back the way I came.

Finally, I find the water.  I put two gallon jugs in my cart and just then notice that when they moved the beer they didn’t move the liquor.  I spot the rum.  I now have rum, trash, junk, crap, garbage, cat food and girly yak in my cart.

Rum is no good without his best friend vanilla coke.  Take a wild guess.

I finally make it to the check out.  My cart has 1 package of feminine products, 1 package of cat food, 1 cat toy, 1 cat brush, 1 cat cube, 1 box Twinkies, 1 box Ho Ho’s, 1 bag peanut butter cups, 2 gallons of water, 1 bottle of rum and 1 box vanilla coke.

And there I stand, an overweight woman in her 30’s, shopping alone at night, wearing boxy glasses, hair in a low ponytail, navy blue pea coat buttoned all the way up buying the ultimate crazy cat lady party package at the self-checkout.  The cashier in charge of making sure you don’t steal any tic tacs while you’re checking out doesn’t even bother to card me.  Probably because it’s pretty clear from the contents of my cart and my general appearance that I am, in fact, desperately in need of this rum.

Thus concluding the story of how I am really not a crazy cat lady and only appear to be one.

Surprise ending: I forgot the car was full of binders.  Completely different story.  So I put the crazy cat lady party cannon in a car full of binders, only further proving that I am actually some kind of librarian/cat lady person.

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Alternate Title: This is why we can’t have nice things AKA There’s a party in my tummy! So Yummy!